SiliconMorning: a Facebook IPO, a Cranky Rupert Murdoch and a Security Breach at Zappos(1/16)

It's not every day that a major media tycoon like Rupert Murdoch takes to his bully pulpit on Twitter to accuse Google of streaming pirated videos. Rupert Murdoch did just that over the weekend, presenting us with a series of misguided and misinformed tweets. Google, of course, was not amused.

Otherwise, the news was relatively quiet this weekend, though there were a number of security breaches at major companies and a discussion about how the iPhone's mute button should work kept the pundits occupied.

Top News

Rupert Murdoch: Google is a "Piracy Leader": Rupert Murdoch, the aging News Corp. chairman, isn't a big fan of Google. Taking to Twitter, Murdoch argued this weekend that the search engine needs to stop streaming pirated movies and give up its position as a "piracy leader." (Reuters, Techmeme)

The Facebook IPO is coming soon: Queen of scoops Kara Swisher reports that Facebook plans to IPO by the end of May. To do so, the company will have to file its paperwork with the SEC within the next month. Facebook will likely opt for a traditional IPO and not follow in Google's footsteps. (AllThingsD)

Google and Facebook fighting back against censorship demands in India: "The big threat for the companies at the moment is a lawsuit in a New Delhi trial court, which seeks to hold them and several other websites criminally liable for not censoring online content, including material that mocks or criticizes religious and political figures." (WSJ)

Security breaches at Zappos and CoverItLive: Two security breaches this weekend – one at Zappos, where customer's email and billing addresses, the last four digits of their credit card numbers and encrypted passwords were stolen. At live blogging platform CoverItLive, hackers also gained access to the company's network, but the extend of the damage is not clear yet. (TechCrunch, PC Mag)

Cloud

Windows on the Amazon cloud: Amazon has added Windows Server 2008 RC2 to its free tier for Amazon Web Services. Hackers – or more likely large businesses who run their apps on Windows Server – can now take a step into the Amazon cloud for free and see if they want to dive in deeper. (Amazon)

See Also

The marimba of shame: The conductor of the New York Philharmonic interrupted a performance this weekend after an iPhone's alarm went off in the front row. The culprit, apparently, muted his phone, but had mistakenly set his alarm to go off during the show. (NYTimes)